The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly
known as the CBC, is a Canadiancrown corporation that serves as the
national public radio and television broadcaster.
In French, it is called la Société
Radio-Canada (Radio-Canada or
SRC). The umbrella corporate brand is
CBC/Radio-Canada.

CBC/Radio-Canada offers programming in English, French and eight
Aboriginal languages on
its domestic radio service; in nine languages on its international
radio service, Radio Canada International;
and in eight languages on its Web-based radio service RCI Viva, a
service for recent and aspiring immigrants to Canada.

The financial structure and the nature of the CBC often place it
in the same category as other high-end national broadcasters, such
as the British broadcaster BBC,
although it should be noted that unlike the BBC, the CBC employs
commercial advertising to supplement its federal funding on its
television broadcasts. Its radio service, like the BBC, is
commercial-free.

History

In 1929, the Aird Commission
on public broadcasting recommended the
creation of a national radio broadcast network. A major concern was
the growing influence of American radio broadcasting as U.S.-based
networks began to expand into Canada. Graham Spry and Alan Plaunt lobbied intensely for the
project on behalf of the Canadian Radio League. In 1932
the government of R.B. Bennett established the CBC’s
predecessor, the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC).

The CRBC took over a network of radio stations
formerly set up by a federal Crown corporation, the Canadian National Railway.
The network was used to broadcast programming to riders aboard its
passenger trains, with coverage primarily in central and eastern
Canada. On November 2, 1936, the CRBC became a full Crown corporation and gained its present
name. Leonard Brockington was the CBC’s
first chairman.

For the next few decades, the CBC was responsible for all
broadcasting innovation in Canada. It introduced FM radio
to Canada in 1946. Television broadcasts from the CBC began on
September 6, 1952, with the opening of a station in Montreal, Quebec (CBFT),
and a station in Toronto, Ontario (CBLT) opening two days
later. The CBC’s first privately owned affiliate television
station, CKSO in Sudbury, Ontario, launched in October
1953. (At the time, all private stations were expected to affiliate
with the CBC, a condition that relaxed in 1960–61 with the launch
of CTV.)

From 1944 to 1962 the CBC operated two English-language AM radio
services known as the Trans-Canada Network and the Dominion
Network. The latter, carrying lighter programs including
American radio shows, was dissolved in 1962, while the former
became known as CBC Radio. (In the late 1990s, CBC Radio was
rebranded as CBC
Radio One and CBC Stereo as CBC Radio Two. The latter was
re-branded slightly in 2007 as CBC Radio 2.)

On July 1, 1958, CBC’s television signal was extended from coast
to coast. The first Canadian tv show shot in colour was the CBC’s
own The Forest Rangers in 1963.
However, colour television broadcasts did not begin until July 1,
1966, and full-colour service began in 1974. In 1978, CBC became
the first broadcaster in the world to use an orbiting satellite for
television service, linking Canada “from east to west to
north.”

Frontier Coverage
Package

Starting in 1967 and continuing until the mid-1970s, the CBC
provided limited television service to remote and northern
communities. Transmitters were built in a few locations and carried
a four-hour selection of black-and-white videotaped programs each
day. The tapes were flown into communities to be shown, then
transported to other communities, often by the “bicycle” method
used in television
syndication. Transportation delays ranged from one week for
larger centres to almost a month for small communities.

The first FCP station was started in Yellowknife in 1967, the second in Whitehorse
in 1968. Additional stations were added from 1969 to 1972. Most
stations were fitted for the Anik satellite signal during 1973,
carrying 12 hours of colour programming. Broadcasts were geared to
either the Atlantic time zone (UTC−4 or −3) or the Pacific time
zone (UTC−8 or −7) even though the audience resided in communities
in time zones varying from UTC−5 to UTC−8.

Some of these stations used non-CBC callsigns such as CFWH-TV in Whitehorse, while
some others used the standard CB_T callsign.

It would be many years before TV programs originated in the
north without the help of the west, starting with one half-hour per
week in the 1980s with Focus North and graduating to a
daily half-hour newscast, Northbeat, in the late
1990s.

CBC
Television slogans

1966: “Television is CBC”

1970 (ca.): “When you watch, watch the best”

1977: “Bringing Canadians Together”

1980: “Now The We Are the CBC”

1984: “Look to us for good things” (general)/”Good to Know”
(news and public affairs)

1988–1989: “The Best on the Box”

1990–1991: “CBC and You”

1992–1994: “Go Public”/”CBC: Public Broadcasting” (that season,
the CBC emphasized the fact that they are a public
broadcaster)

Logos

This is the original logo of the CBC, used between 1940 and
1958. It features a map of Canada and a thunderbolt design used to
symbolize broadcasting.

The CBC used this logo at the end of network programs between
1958 and 1974. It consists simply of the legends “CBC” and
“Radio-Canada” overlaid on a map of Canada. The version shown here
was used by Radio-Canada, while the CBC used a version with the
legends transposed.

This
“Butterfly” logo was designed for the CBC by Hubert Tison in 1966
to mark the network’s progressing transition from black-and-white
to colour television much in the manner of the American NBC
Television Network peacock symbol. It was used at the beginning of
programs broadcast in colour, and was used until all CBC TV
programs had successfully switched to colour, at which point it was
replaced with “the gem”. A sketch on the CBC Television program
Wayne & Shuster once referred to
this as the logo of the “Cosmic Butterfly Corporation.”[2]

This logo,
officially known internally as “the gem,” was designed for the CBC
by graphic artist Burton Kramer in 1974, and it is the most widely
recognized symbol of the corporation. (It was also dubbed "The
Exploding Pizza" in the press at the time, and is still sometimes
referred to that way today.) The appearance of this logo marked the
arrival of full-colour network television service. The large shape
in the middle is the letter C, which stands for Canada, and the
radiating parts of the C symbolize broadcasting. The theme music
for the 1974 CBC ident was a 3-note synthesized fanfare accompanied
by the voiceover “This is CBC.”[3]

The logo was officially changed to one colour, generally dark
blue on white, or white on dark blue in 1986. Print ads and most
television promos, however, have always used a single-colour
version of this logo since 1974.

The logo was simplified in 1992. Since the early 2000s, it has
also appeared in white (sometimes red) on a textured or coloured
background.

When the creation of the CBC “gem” logo was in its planning
stages in 1974, designer Burton Kramer put together an early
version of the network’s ID. In it, the C part of the logo zoomed
away from the viewer toward the centre of the screen, followed by
the other parts of the logo in similar fashion until the complete
logo formed on a black background, with the name “Television
Canada” (possibly a planned change of name for the CBC’s television
units at the time) appearing beneath it.[4]

Although that version of the network ID was not used, the
well-known version of the ID (with the logo kaleidoscopically
morphing into its form while radiating outward from the centre of
the screen on a blue background) made its TV debut on the CBC’s
English and French networks in December 1974. Some refer to this
animated version as “The Exploding Pizza.”[5] The
jingle initially used for the ID was a three-note synthesized
jingle with an announcer saying “This is CBC” or «Ici Radio-Canada» at the end of the ID, but
that short-lived jingle was replaced around 1976 by the more
well-known eleven-note jingle, which lasted until December 31,
1985.

The updated one-colour version of the gem logo was introduced on
January 1, 1986, and with it was introduced a new series of
computer graphic-generated TV IDs for CBC and Radio-Canada. These
IDs consisted of different background colours corresponding to the
time of day behind a translucent CBC gem logo, accompanied by
different arrangements of the CBC’s new, orchestrated five-note
jingle. When the CBC logo was updated to its current form in 1992,
new TV IDs were introduced in November that year, also using
CG.

Nicknames

As the oldest currently operating Canadian broadcaster, and
still the largest in terms of national availability of its various
networks, the nickname “Mother Corp” and variants thereof are
sometimes used in reference to the CBC.[6]

A popular satirical nickname for the CBC, commonly used in the
pages of Frank, is “the Corpse.”

There is an urban
legend that a CBC announcer once referred to the network on the
air as the “Canadian Broadcorping Castration,” which also sometimes
remains in use as a satirical nickname. Quotations of the supposed
spoonerism are wildly
variable in detail on what was said, when it was said or even who
the announcer was, but there is no evidence to confirm the truth of
the story. The only known recording of this phrase being spoken was
created by American radio producer Kermit Schaefer for one of his
best-selling Pardon My
Blooper record albums in the 1950s, and is not in fact a
real recording of a CBC broadcast.

Some have referred to the CBC as the “Corporate Broadcasting
Corporation” for an alleged free market bias, though the CBC is largely
publicly funded.[7]

The CBC was also jokingly called BBC Canada during the 2005 lockout by
Canadians and CBC workers due to the large amount of British
content then aired in place of the regular schedule.

The CBC has also been mistakenly referred to as the Canadian
Broadcasting Company.[8]

Corporation

Mandate

...the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public
broadcaster, should provide radio and television services
incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens
and entertains; ...the programming provided by the Corporation
should:

be predominantly and distinctively Canadian,

reflect Canada and its regions to national and regional
audiences, while serving the special needs of those regions,

actively contribute to the flow and exchange of cultural
expression,

be in English and in French, reflecting the different needs and
circumstances of each official language community, including the
particular needs and circumstances of English and French linguistic
minorities,

strive to be of equivalent quality in English and French,

contribute to shared national consciousness and identity,

be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and
efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose,
and

reflect the multicultural and multiracial nature of
Canada.

Management

As a crown corporation, the CBC operates at
arm’s length (autonomously) from the government in its day-to-day
business. The corporation is governed by the Broadcasting Act of 1991, under a Board of
Directors and is directly responsible to Parliament through the Department of Canadian
Heritage. General management of the organization is in the
hands of a President, who is appointed by the Prime Minister.

Board of
Directors

In accordance with the Broadcasting Act, the Board of Directors
is responsible for the management of the Corporation. The Board is
made up of 12 members, including the Chair and the President and
CEO. As of November 2009, the board consists of 12 white
members:[9]

John Fitzgerald Young – Dean of the College of Arts,
Social and Health Sciences at the University of Northern British
Columbia, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and
Religion Studies at Brigham Young University

Ombudsmen

English

French

Finance

For the fiscal year 2006, the CBC received a total of $1.53
billion from all revenue sources, including government funding,
subscription fees, advertising revenue, and other revenue (e.g.
real estate).

Funding

Among its revenue sources for the year ending March 31, 2006,
the CBC received $946 million in its “permanent” funding from the
federal government, as well as $60 million in one-time
supplementary funding for programming. However, this supplementary
funding has been repeated annually, on a year-to-year basis, for a
number of years. This totals just over a billion dollars annually
and is a source of heated debate.

CBC’s funding differs from that of the public broadcasters of
many European nations, which collect a licence
fee, or those in the United States, such as PBS and NPR, which receive some public
funding but rely to a large extent on voluntary contributions from
individual viewers and listeners.

To supplement this funding, the CBC’s television networks and
websites sell advertising, while cable/satellite-only services such
as Newsworld additionally collect subscriber fees, in line with
their privately owned counterparts. CBC’s radio services do not
sell advertising except when required by law (for example, to
political parties during federal elections).

For the fiscal year 2006, the CBC received a total of $1.53
billion from all revenue sources. Expenditures for the year
included $616 million for English TV, $402 million for French TV,
$126 million for specialty channels, a total of $348 million for
radio services in both languages, $88 million for management and
technical costs, and $124 million for “amortization of property and
equipment.” Some of this spending was derived from amortization of
funding from previous years.[10]

The network’s defenders note that the CBC’s mandate differs from
private media’s, particularly in its focus on Canadian content;
that much of the public funding actually goes to the radio
networks; and that the CBC is responsible for the full cost of most
of its prime-time programming, while private networks can fill up
most of their prime-time schedules with American series acquired
for a fraction of their production cost. CBC supporters also claim
that additional, long-term funding is required to provide better
Canadian dramas and improved local programming.

The $616 million budget for CBC Television is in fact smaller
than, for example, the $656 million in revenues[11]
earned by private broadcaster CanWest Global for
its various television operations in fiscal 2006, which trailed
rival CTV’s ratings by a wide margin.[12]

Although the CBC has a similar remit to that of the BBC, and
therefore has a unique national responsibility to advance Canadian
culture without commercial objects, the CBC's budget is a fraction
the size of the BBC's budget. The BBC received about £3.1 billion
(more than $8 billion) in licence fees during 2007/8 compared to
the $946 million the CBC received from the public purse and which
was split between French language and English language
services.[13]

Services

News

CBC News is the largest broadcast newsgathering operation in
Canada, providing services to CBC radio as well as CBC News
Network, local supper-hour newscasts, CBC News Online, and Air Canada’s in-flight
entertainment. New CBC News services also proving popular such as
news alerts to mobile phones and PDAs. Desktop news alerts, e-mail
alerts, and digital TV alerts are also available.

Radio

CBC Radio has four separate services, two in English, known as
CBC Radio One
and CBC Radio 2, and
two in French, known as Première Chaîne and Espace
musique. CBC Radio One and Première Chaîne focus
on news and information
programming, but they air some music programs, variety shows,
comedy, and sports programming. Historically, CBC Radio One has
broadcast primarily on the AM band, but many stations have moved over
to FM.
Over the years, a number of CBC radio transmitters with a majority
of them on the AM band have either moved to FM or had shutdown
completely.

CBC Radio 2 and Espace musique, found exclusively on
FM, air arts and cultural programming, with a focus on music (mostly classical and jazz).

CBC Radio also operates two shortwave services. One, Radio Nord Québec, broadcasts domestically
to Northern Quebec on a static frequency of 9625 kHz,
and the other, Radio Canada International,
provides broadcasts to the United States and around the world in
eight languages. Additionally, the Radio One stations in St. John’s and Vancouver operate shortwave relay
transmitters, broadcasting at 6160 kHz. Some have
suggested[14] that
CBC/Radio-Canada create a new high-power shortwave digital radio service for more
effective coverage of isolated areas.

Television

The CBC operates two national broadcast television networks
– CBC
Television in English, and la Télévision de
Radio-Canada in French. Like private broadcasters, both
those networks sell advertising, but offer more Canadian-produced
programming. Most CBC television stations, including those in the
major cities, are owned and operated by the CBC itself and carry a
common schedule, aside from local programming.

Some stations that broadcast from smaller cities are private affiliates of the CBC, that is, stations
which are owned by commercial broadcasters and air a predominantly
CBC schedule. However, most affiliates of the English network opt
out of some network programs to air local programming or more
popular foreign programs acquired from other broadcasters. Private
affiliates of the French network, all of which are located in Quebec, rarely have the means to
provide alternate programming. Such private affiliates are becoming
increasingly rare.

One of the most popular shows is the weekly Saturday night
broadcast of NHLhockey games. In English, the program is
known as Hockey Night in Canada, and
in French, it was called La Soirée du hockey. Both
shows began in 1952. The French edition was discontinued in 2004,
though Radio-Canada stations outside of Quebec simulcast some
Saturday night games produced by RDS until 2006. The network suffered
considerable public embarrassment when it lost the rights to the
show's theme music following a protracted lawsuit launched by the
song's composer and publishers.[15]

Ratings for CBC Television have declined in recent years. In Quebec, where the majority speaks
French, la Télévision de Radio-Canada is popular and
garners some of the highest ratings in the province.

The CBC also operates three specialty television channels –
CBC News
Network, an English-language news channel; RDI, a French-language news
channel; and Bold, a Category
1 digital service. It owns a managing interest in the
Francophone arts service ARTV, and
(82%) of the digital channel, Documentary

Online

The CBC has two main websites. One is in English, at CBC.ca, which was established in
1996[16]; the
other is in French[17]. The
website allows the CBC to produce sections which complement the
various programs on television and radio.

Merchandising

Established in 2002, the CBC/Radio Canada merchandising business
operates retail locations and cbcshop.ca[18], its
educational sales department CBC Learning [7]</ref> sells CBC content and media to
educational institutions, CBC Merchandising also licenses brands
such as Hockey Night in Canada and
Coronation Street.

CBC Records is a
Canadian record label which distributes CBC programming, including
live concert performances and album transcripts of news and
information programming such as the Massey Lectures, in album format. Music
albums on the label, predominantly in the classical and jazz
genres, are distributed across Canada in commercial record stores,
while albums containing spoken word programming are predominantly
distributed by the CBC's own retail merchandising operations.

Labour
issues

During the summer of 1981 there was a major disruption of CBC
programming as the technicians union, N.A.B.E.T. (National
Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians) went on strike.
Local newscasts were cut back to the bare minimum. This had the
effect of delaying the debut of The Journal, which
had to wait until January 1982.

On August 15, 2005, 5,500 employees of the CBC (about 90%) were
locked
out by CBC CEO Robert Rabinovitch in a dispute over
future hiring practices. At issue were the rules governing the
hiring of contract workers in preference to full time hires. The
locked-out employees were members of the Canadian
Media Guild, representing all production, journalistic and
on-air personnel outside Quebec and Moncton, including several foreign
correspondents. While CBC services continued during the lockout,
they were comprised primarily of repeats, with news programming
from the BBC and newswires. Major
CBC programs such as The National and Royal Canadian
Air Farce were not produced during the lockout; some
non-CBC-owned programs seen on the network, such as The Red Green
Show, shifted to other studios. Meanwhile, the locked-out
employees produced podcasts and websites such as CBCunplugged.com, which many credited with
swaying public opinion to the union’s side.

After a hiatus, talks re-opened. In addition, the Canadian
public was becoming irritated with the loss of quality of their
publicly funded service. On September 23, the federal minister of
labour called Robert Rabinovitch and Arnold Amber (the
president of the CBC branch of the Canadian Media Guild) to his
office for talks aimed at ending the dispute.

Late in the evening of October 2, 2005, it was announced that
the CBC management and staff had reached a tentative deal which
resulted in the CBC returning to normal operations on October 11.
Some speculated that the looming October 8 start date for the
network’s most important television property, Hockey Night in Canada, had
acted as an additional incentive to resolve the dispute.

The CBC has been affected by a number of other labour disputes
since the late 1990s:

A similar dispute, again involving all technicians outside
Quebec and Moncton, occurred in late 2001 and
concluded by the end of the year.

In spring 2002, on-air staff in Quebec and Moncton (again, on
both English and French networks) were locked out by local
management, leaving, among other things, NHL playoff games without commentary on
French television.

While all labour disputes resulted in cut-back programming and
numerous repeat airings, the 2005 lockout may have been the most
damaging to CBC. All local programming in the affected regions was
cancelled and replaced by abbreviated national newscasts and
national radio morning shows. BBC World (television)
and World
Service (radio) and Broadcast News feeds were used to
provide the remainder of original news content, and the CBC website
was comprised mainly of rewritten wire copy. Some BBC staff
protested against their material being used during the CBC lockout.
“The NUJ and BECTU will not tolerate their members’ work
being used against colleagues in Canada,” said a joint statement by
BBC unions. The CMG questioned whether, with
its limited Canadian news content, the CBC was meeting its legal
requirements under the Broadcasting Act and its
CRTC licences.

Galaxie supplied some music content for the
radio networks. Tapes of previously-aired or -produced
documentaries, interviews and entertainment programs were also
aired widely. Selected television sports coverage, including that
of the Canadian Football League,
continued, but without commentary.

As before, French-language staff outside of Quebec were also
affected by the 2005 lockout, although with Quebec producing the
bulk of the French networks’ programming, those networks were not
as visibly affected by the dispute apart from local programs.

Cultural
significance

Since the 1970s, the CBC has not maintained the dominance in
broadcasting it formerly had, but it still plays an important role.
The CBC’s cultural influence, like that of many public
broadcasters, has waned in recent decades. This is partly due to
severe budget cuts by the Canadian federal government, which began
in the late 1980s and levelled off in the late 1990s. It is also
due to industry-wide fragmentation of TV audiences (the decline of
network TV generally, due to the rise in specialty channel
viewership, as well as the increase of non-TV entertainment options
such as video games, the Internet, etc.). Private networks in
Canada face the same competition, but their viewership is declining
more slowly than CBC Television’s.

In English-speaking Canada, the decline in CBC viewership can be
partly attributed to the fact that private TV networks primarily
rebroadcast popular American programming with substituted Canadian
advertising. American programs appear to attract higher audiences
than do much of the made-in-Canada programming that is a CBC
specialty.

Viewership on the CBC’s French TV network has also declined,
mostly because of stiff competition from private French-language
networks. Audience fragmentation is another issue – French
Canadians prefer home-grown television programming, a vibrant
Quebec star system is in
place, and little American or foreign content airs on
French-language networks, public or private. On the other hand, the
CBC’s French-language radio
channel is sometimes the top-rated network.

In the case of breaking news, including federal elections, the CBC may still hold a
slight edge. For instance, after election night 2006,
CBC Television took out full-page newspaper ads claiming that 2.2
million Canadians watched their coverage, more than any other
broadcaster. However, in similar ads, CTV also claimed to be number
one, stating there was a CBC audience of only 1.2 million. In both
cases, the methodologies were not clear from the ads, such as
whether simulcasts on one or both of the networks’ news channels
(Newsworld for CBC, Newsnet for CTV) were
counted.

The CBC was the only television network broadcasting in Canada
until the creation of ITO, a short-lived predecessor of today’s CTV, in 1960; even then, large
parts of Canada did not receive CTV service until the late 1960s or
early 1970s. The CBC also had the only national radio network. Its
cultural impact was therefore significant since many Canadians had
little or no choice for their information and entertainment other
than from these two powerful media.

Even after the advent of commercial television and radio, the
CBC has remained one of the main elements in Canadian popular
culture through its obligation to produce Canadian TV and radio
programming. The CBC has made programs for mass audiences and for
smaller audiences interested in drama, performance arts,
documentaries, current affairs, entertainment and sport.

The 1950s saw the CBC providing hands-on training and employment
for actors, writers, and directors in the developing field of its
television dramatic services, and later saw much of the talent
heading south to seek fame and fortune in New York and
Hollywood.

Competition from private broadcasters like CTV, Global, and other broadcast
television stations and specialty channels has lessened the CBC’s
reach, but nevertheless it remains a major influence on Canadian
popular culture. According to the corporation’s research, 92% of
Canadians consider the CBC an essential service.[20]

In 2000, CBC and Power Broadcasting sold these channels to Barry Diller’s USA
Networks. Diller’s company was later acquired by Vivendi Universal, which in turn was
partially acquired by NBC to form NBC Universal. NBC
Universal still owns the Trio brand, which no longer has any
association with the CBC (and, as of the end of 2005, became an
Internet-only broadband channel).

However, the CBC continued to program NWI, with much of its
programming simulcast on the domestic Newsworld service. In late
2004, as a result of a further change in NWI’s ownership to the INdTV
consortium (including Joel
Hyatt and former Vice-President of the United StatesAl Gore), NWI ceased airing CBC
programming on August 1, 2005, when it was renamed Current TV.

Hockey Night in Canada is
widely preferred to American television’s NHL coverage in the
border states and has a loyal following. Also, CBC signals are not
subject to FCC censorship. CBC’s Olympic coverage is also well-received,
as it provides an alternative to NBC’s coverage, which, some have alleged, focuses
too much on American athletes. CBC’s Olympic coverage is also
carried live, regardless of broadcast time, compared to NBC’s tape
delay. Also several of CBC's original shows such as Little Mosque on the
Prairie have large American viewership.

At night, the AM radio transmissions of both CBC and SRC
services can be received over much of the northern portion of the
United States, from stations such as CBE in Windsor, CBW in Winnipeg and CBK in Saskatchewan.

Carriage of
CBC News

On September 11, 2001, several American broadcasters without
their own news operations, including C-SPAN, carried the CBC’s coverage of the September
11, 2001 attacks in New York City and Washington,
D.C.. In the days after September 11, C-SPAN carried CBC’s
nightly newscast, The National, anchored by Peter
Mansbridge. The quality of this coverage was recognized
specifically by the Canadian Journalism
Foundation; editor-in-chief Tony Burman later accepted the Excellence
in Journalism Award (2004) – for “rigorous professional
practice, accuracy, originality and public accountability” –
on behalf of the service.

C-SPAN has also carried CBC’s coverage of major events affecting
Canadians, including:

Several PBS
stations also air some CBC programming, especially The Red Green
Show. However, these programs are syndicated by
independent distributors and are not governed by the PBS “common
carriage” policy.

Other American broadcast networks sometimes air CBC reports,
especially for Canadian events of international significance. For
example, in the early hours after the Swissair
Flight 111 disaster, CNN aired
CBC’s live coverage of the event. Also in the late 1990s, CNN Headline News aired a few CBC reports
of events that were not significant outside Canada.

CBC Radio

With the launch of Sirius Canada in December 2005, some of
the CBC’s radio networks (including Radio Canada International and
Sirius-exclusive Radio Three and Bande à part channels)
are available to Sirius subscribers in the United
States.

Caribbean
and Bermuda

Several Caribbean nations carry feeds of CBC TV:

Bahamas, on the CoralWave (Cable Bahamas)
TV system in the Northern Bahamas (Channel 8)

Controversies

Closed
captioning

CBC Television was an early leader in broadcasting programming
with closed
captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing
viewers, airing its first captioned programming in 1981.[21]
Captioned programming in Canada began with the airing of Clown
White in English- and French-language versions on CBC
Television and Radio-Canada, respectively. (Most sources list that
event as occurring in 1981,[22] while
others list the year as 1982[23].)

In 1997, Henry Vlug, a deaf lawyer in Vancouver, filed a
complaint with the Canadian Human Rights
Commission alleging that an absence of captioning on some
programming on CBC Television and Newsworld infringed on his rights
as a person with a disability. A ruling in 2000 by the Canadian
Human Rights Tribunal, which later heard the case, sided with Vlug
and found that an absence of captioning constituted discrimination
on the basis of disability.[24] The
Tribunal ordered CBC Television and Newsworld to caption the
entirety of their broadcast days, “including television shows,
commercials, promos and unscheduled news flashes, from sign-on
until sign-off.”

The ruling recognized that “there will inevitably be glitches
with respect to the delivery of captioning” but that “the rule
should be full captioning.” In a negotiated settlement to avoid
appealing the ruling to the Federal Court of Canada, CBC
agreed to commence 100% captioning on CBC Television and Newsworld
beginning November 1, 2002.[25] CBC
Television and Newsworld are apparently the only broadcasters in
the world required to caption the entire broadcast day. However,
published evidence asserts that CBC is not providing the 100%
captioning ordered by the Tribunal.[26]

In 2004, retired Canadian Senator Jean-Robert Gauthier, a
hard-of-hearing person, filed a complaint with the Canadian Human
Rights Commission against Radio-Canada concerning captioning,
particularly the absence of real-time captioning on newscasts and
other live programming. As part of the settlement process,
Radio-Canada agreed to submit a report on the state of captioning,
especially real-time captioning, on Radio-Canada and RDI.[27] The
report, which was the subject of some criticism, proposed an
arrangement with Cité Collégiale, a community college
in Ottawa, to train more French-language real-time captioners.[28][29]

English-language specialty networks owned or co-owned by
CBC, including Bold and Documentary, have the lower
captioning requirements typical of larger Canadian broadcasters
(90% of the broadcast day by the end of both networks’ licence
terms[30][31]). ARTV, the French-language specialty
network co-owned by CBC, has a maximum captioning requirement of
53%.[32]

“Beyond the Red
Wall”

In November 2007, the CBC replaced their documentary ‘‘Beyond
the Red Wall: Persecution of Falun Gong’’ at the last minute with a rerun
episode regarding President Pervez Musharaf in
Pakistan. Originally, the broadcaster had said to the press that
“the crisis in Pakistan was considered more urgent and much more
newsworthy,” but sources from within the network itself had stated
that the Chinese government had called the Canadian Embassy and
demanded repeatedly that the program be taken off the air. The
documentary in question was to air on Tuesday, November 6, 2007 on
CBC Newsworld, but was replaced.[33] The
documentary aired two weeks later on November 20, 2007,[34] after
editing.[35]

Judith
Jasmin started working for Radio-Canada in the late 1940s,
co-hosted Carrefour with René
Lévesque on Radio-Canada (radio);, hosted Reportage
and Conférence de presse; became the first woman named
foreign correspondent for Radio-Canada at the UN (1966), and then in Washington, DC.

^
Combined revenues for Global, CH, and specialty channels such as TVtropolis. CanWest does
not release publicly its expenditures for its TV
operations, nor does it break out figures for individual
channels.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC, is a national television and radio company in Canada. In French, it is called la Société Radio-Canada (Radio-Canada or SRC). It was formed in 1936 and is a Canadian Crown corporation, which means it is owned by the Canadian government.